The Future Place Blog

Check out the ESOMAR Prices Study

I have recently finished working on the 2010 ESOMAR Global Prices Study and I think it is a really useful aid to the research industry. The summary report is available in the June 2010 issue of Research World and if you are a member of ESOMAR the report and an interactive data tool is available online here.

The project was quite demanding. Trying to get consistent quotes from 604 agencies across 100 countries is a challenging task, and much of the credit for achieving this goes to Jennifer Grainger from ESOMAR who (in addition to co-leading the project) interfaced with the agencies and with the data collection agency (very ably conducted by NEBU ), thanks should also be extended to the coordinators from the large agencies who helped ensure that broadly comparable data were collected.

When this year’s project was being specified there were some market researchers who worried that this report might be turn out to be a hostage to fortune, they feared that procurement departments might use it to beat agencies down. However, my view is that the prices study actually evens things up. Clients are already free to conduct test pricing and to ask for multiple quotes for projects. The ESOMAR study allows a research agency to compare itself against others in its market, and against other countries.

I would strongly recommend that people ready the summary report to get an overview of what 2010 looks like and how it has changed since 2007. But I would also suggest that people use the ESOMAR online tool to investigate their market in greater depth.

For example, this morning opened the 2007 online tool and the 2010 online tool, and turned the currency in the both models to UK pounds and then looked at the UK to assess what had happened in the local currency between 2007 and 2010. Unlike the overall report, prices have risen considerably (in UK pounds) in the UK between 2007 and 2010. However, since the pound has lost ground against many leading currencies, this is not apparent to many companies buying from outside the UK.

In short, the summary report is the starting position for anybody who wants to understand more about prices in market research, the next step is to log in to the ESOMAR site and access the online tool. Indeed for some people this tool alone will be worth the annual membership fee!

Would abandoning democracy save the planet?

A growing number of voices are calling for democracy to be put to one side for a while to allow the dangers of climate change to be tackled. One of the most prominent people putting forward this argument is Professor James Lovelock (the originator of the gaia theory).

A BBC Radio 4 was broadcast on this topic on Sunday (if you are quick you can listen to it on BBC’s iPlayer) with Justin Rowlatt looking into the claim that democracy is now expendable in the greater cause. In the show Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute says “I think in the same way that I understand James Lovelock has suggested that, I fear I have to share his view on that. There’s no way that the public are going to willingly say ‘I will forego flying’. The fact is that we’ve got to live on such a low use of fossil fuels for our daily activities. Therefore it’s got to be required of them and if they don’t go along with it, then we are - I fear - heading for absolute disaster. We are on a trajectory towards rendering the planet steadily uninhabitable.”

Now, I completely accept the argument that we have to have a real reduction in carbon use in the world, which implies a massive reduction in the West (without accepting every number in every report). But I think those arguing for the suspension of democracy are dangerously wrong.

The people asking for democracy to be suspended are assuming that the people who would suspend democracy would be enlightened, tree-hugging, liberals. However, if we look at the people who have the guns, the tanks, the jets, and the power, we see they are amongst the most right wing and amongst the most sceptical of the science behind climate change.

If we removed democracy we would probably have an elite committed to enjoying the party for as long as they could, and the massive carbon impact of civil wars and insurrections.

One interesting side fact that is beginning to emerge from the debate about climate change is that right-wing politicians seem almost uniformly sceptical or hostile to the claims from the scientists. I do not have an easy answer for why that might be. There are plenty of very intelligent people on the right, why do they struggle to deal with an overwhelming scientific consensus?

ps I am not saying that all climate change sceptics are right-wing, just that most right-wing politicians are sceptics.

The LibDem/Conservative coalition – the least bad option

As many people are aware I have been a Liberal politician for many years, indeed I have been an elected councillor since 1983 and have on three occasions been a parliamentary candidate. Also, as people who have heard me rant will know, I am decidedly left of centre. So, what do I think about my party being in coalition with the Conservatives?

Well, mostly, I think it is the least bad option. Let's start by looking at the key fact.

The country has voted for a coalition, i.e. for none of us.

We in the LibDems would rather have done a deal with Labour (well most of us would - I am not sure about one or two of our leaders), but Labour back-benchers and ex-ministers torpedoed that. Check out what John Reid, David Blunket, and Tom Harris were doing and saying whilst Labour and LibDem negotiators were meeting. As I understand it the deal that was offered by Labour was to vote for their manifesto, rather than to combine our policies (Labour got 29% of the vote, LibDems got 23%). On top of that the Welsh Nats, Scots Nats, and Green said that Labour had not even bothered to phone them about an alternative deal - and an alternative would have needed all the progressive parties.

With Labour refusing to play, the two options left were a minority Conservative administration and an election in a few months when it broke down, and then probably a Conservative Government (because Labour and LibDems would be held to blame), or a LibDem/Con coalition. 

Or to put that choice another way

a) LibDems could have kept their hands clean, but then we would have got a Conservative Government, with no brakes on the harm they could cause.

b) or LibDems could sup with the devil and aim to reduce the harm the Conservatives will do, and hopefully get a few good things changed along the way.

For example, at least with the Conservatives we’ll get an all elected House of Lords, with PR, and remove the poorest from income tax (i.e. everybody earning under £10,000 a year), both of which Labour would not have given us (according to news from the negotiations with Labour).

A week ago I would not have considered a LibDem coalition as a viable or moral alternative, but now we have it, I hope, I really hope, it works. If it goes wrong then the electorate are mostly to blame - for once they have got exactly what they voted for, and close behind them those parts of the Labour party (probably a minority) who refused create a progressive alliance.

Can it work? Well, from 2003 to 2007 I was in a coalition running Gedling Borough Council, the Cabinet was made of 3 Conservatives, 3 Labour, and 1 LibDem (me). That coalition lasted the whole four years, we never got to the point of liking each other, but the Council was better run during those four years then before or since, partly because it was able to draw on all the talents and there all too few talents in local politics (it is now run by the Conservatives because Labour lost too many seats to the Conservatives in the 2007 election - we won two extra seats, but that still meant we were in opposition).

ps here is a link to what is in the agreement, the civil liberties section is very good, rolling back some of the Labour attacks on liberties such as the DNA database and the attacks on trial by jury

Twitter and the election, voyeurs, participants, or distraction

At the moment the UK is in the middle of a general election, which will select the government for the next four or five years. Last night in the UK the leaders of the three main parties held a televised debate, which, amazingly, was the first time a televised debate had been held in the UK.

The Twitter back-channel last night really came of age, with over 184,000 tweets being sent, using the hashtag #leadersdebate. The question that the volume of Twitter raises in my mind is whether it was simply a bunch of voyeurs, a new version of the ‘chattering classes’, or were the people Tweeting the avant guarde, i.e. shock troops who will initiate change, perhaps by contributing to momentum?

This article from the Telegraph (a pro-Conservative newspaper) has a good analysis of the different media (traditional and social) and they way they interacted with the debate.

Between now and May 6 (election day) the UK is likely to conduct an enormous experiment in the role of Twitter and social media in elections, along with extensive use of traditional routes such as billboards, phone, and mail. Note, the UK does not permit TV advertising for political parties.

ESOMAR move APAC Conference from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur

Because of the tragic and worrying circumstances in Thailand, ESOMAR have announced that they have had to move their APAC Conference from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur. The dates remain the same April 25 to 27. The ESOMAR Website has information about the change and about the new venue.

Speaking as one of the people who was scheduled to present in Bangkok, I am sure that ESOMAR have made the right decision, the safety of delegates, speakers, staff, and exhibitors has to be the first consideration.

ESOMAR also has an FAQ section on their website.

Moving a conference with less than two weeks to go is an enormous undertaking and ESOMAR will need as much co-operation as possible, as will the delegates, speakers, and exhibitors. I understand that the local contacts in both Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are pulling out all the stops to make sure that the Conference is a success.

Hopefully most of the delegates, speakers, and exhibitors who were planning to go to Bangkok will be able to change their plans. Indeed, some people who had not booked to attend in Bangkok may now be able to attend in Kuala Lumpur.

Of course, our main thoughts must be with the people of Thailand and a hope that the situation can be resolved both justly and peacefully.

Politcians and Cookies - a dodgy mix

Research-Live has an interesting article about the EU's new directive on cookies and techniques such as digital fingerprinting. One always worries when politicians try to legislate for the specifics of a new technology, a) they struggle to understand it and b) it does not stand still long enough for most laws to be sensibly written and implemented.

The directive will have to be implemented by each of the countries in the EU, but each one will draft their own laws, which could be quite incompatible with each other.

The main thrust is that before a cookie can be served and before data can be read from a website visitor's site, prior permission must be obtained. The problem is that it is not clear whether this mean, at one extreme, asking every time every cookie is served, or at the other extreme that not setting your browser to reject the request means you have given prior permission.

The fear is that if rules are drawn too tightly online advertising and sight personalisation will be rendered useless, destroying the cost model of large parts of the Web and making sites less responsive to users.

Of course, if EU legislation makes Google.co.uk unusable and Amazon.co.uk unusable we will still be able to use Google.com and Amazon.com - but I am not quite clear how that helps companies based in EU, indeed if UK shoppers are pushed into using non-EU sites, there rights will be severely diminished.

The web defends British democracy!

There is a great satirical post at the Daily Quail showing how tools such as Twitter played a role in overturning the gagging order organised by UK law firm Carter-Ruck, protecting their client Trafigura.

The back story to the post is that Carter-Ruck had obtained a court injunction preventing the Guardian newspaper from reporting that an MP was asking a question in Parliament about Trafigura dumping toxic waste in Africa (in the Ivory Coast). The injunction prevented the newspaper from reporting who had asked for it, who was asking the question, what the question was about, and the company accused.

Many thanks to Paul Feldwick for highlighting this via Facebook

Time for some sense about liquids on planes

I fly a lot, probably more than 20 flights a year, and mostly I am fairly calm about the process. But there is one thing that drives me up the wall and that is other passengers complaining about security measures, particularly the, now, longstanding rules about not taking more than 100ml of liquids into the cabin.

The rules are there for our safety. It may be that these complaining travellers are willing to take the extra risk, so as not to suffer a very minor inconvenience (mostly a requirement to have a bit of a think in advance), but I want a reasonable level of safety.

Last week 3 plotters were found guilty of trying to smuggle liquids into the cabins of planes in drink bottles with the intention of blowing those planes up. This was not a Government scare, this was a pretty close run thing. So, if you are planning to fly, think ahead, put your perfume in the hold, keep you hold materials legal, and smile at the people at the security bench who are trying to keep you safe, otherwise I will be forced to frown at you, which (as anybody who understands Brits knows) is a very stern note of disapproval.

The only think that has angered me more than other passengers over the last few years was Ryanair calling for the safety measures to be dropped because they were interfering with their ability to make money. Along with the massive number of complaints about Ryanair's misleading advertising, the stories relating to Ryanair planning to remove some of the toilets from flights (replacing them with extra seating) and introducing a £1 charge to use the toilet, it is a wonder that anybody wants to fly with them.

More evidence of global warming

The BBC have an article about how the artic is warmer now than at any time in the last 2000 years.

Longevity league tables

With all the fuss about health reform, and discussion about whose health system is the best, I had a look at the CIA World Fact Book for some comparative data.

For Brits the bad news is that we are ranked 36th, well behind our neighbour France which was ranked 9th, and behind English speaking Austalia(7th) and Canada (8th), the US came in somewhat behind at 50.

The top five were: Macau, Andorra, Japan, Singapore, and San Marino. Three in Asia, two in Europe, it looks more like the way people live rather than ethnicity.